Abraham George - Texas Republican Party Chairman Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the runaway Democrats right now are in Illinois. They're
the guest of JB. Pritzker, who's the governor there. Very
liberal state, very liberal governor. So he's more than happy
to provide cover. Joins to talk about is Texas Republican
Party chairman Abraham George. We've already talked, mister George about
how many times Democrats have done this and how it
always fails. But here we go again. Huh.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, you know, if they learn anything in Texas, they
should stop doing what they're doing. I mean, they keep
losing everything and now they're doing this. It's crazy, but
you know it's Democrats. He can't really change.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
That, Governor Abbid, you know, sounding tough. I mean, there
are laws that have passed through the state legislature about
this particular activity since the last time it happened. They
incur a five hundred dollars per day fine all the
ones who are not there to be a part of
the quorum, and maybe even more than that, the governor's
threatening to remove them from office. Can he do that?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Absolutely? So, you know, a legislator can not show up
to work if there's like a family emergency or something
going on. But actually plan to not to show up
to work. Because our constitution says that if the governor
calls for a special session, the legislator shall show up.
And it's very simple, it's not hard to do, understand,

(01:20):
and they shall meet. That is part of our constitution.
And if they actually go and leave and then plea
meditate to leave the state, not only governor can remove
them from office and put somebody else in there and
they can fill the vacancy. On top of it, Governor
is now talking about adding family charges if they actually

(01:40):
fundraise to do this, because that could consider as bribing
a legislator. So this is going to get really ugly
really fast if they continue to play this game.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, it sounds like really fast, is right, because I
think the governor put a deadline of three pm this
afternoon on this That's.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Right, that's when this house come mean, so we can
means today and they're going to talk about redistricting, They're
they're going to talk about flood relief. So yeah, they
the democrass should show up to work. I mean, they
need to be able to come to the chamber and
defend their position. Unfortunately, they don't have the guts to
do it, So they just left and meant to Illinois.

(02:19):
In all the states, they could go to Illinois.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, well, Illinois, Like Illinois and California, you'd be the
first two places I would expect them to go because
you know, you've got very friendly governors there. They're more
than happy to you know, the lobby on your behalf.
Now that's going to do any good. So is there
a mechanism in the state legislature that would allow a
vote to occur despite the fact that there's not a quorum?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Not necessarily, I mean there are If the governor decides
he's going to have a vacancy, then the quorum changes, right,
I mean these members are not there anymore, so the
quorum changes. But but without it, uh, you know, we're
going to need to have a hundred people there.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Okay. So safe to say, no matter what happens, a
court case will be coming next, right. I'm sure the
Democrats are just going to walk away if they basically
get let go by the governor this afternoon for not
showing up. So this whole thing ends up in court
at some point.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean Attorney John Ken Paxton had
an opinion and this was right after the twenty twenty
one deal. I think it's KP zero three eighty two
and it actually says whether the Texas law laws for
the determination of the legislators being vacated. It actually will

(03:39):
get to a court and the court will have a
district court will have final say in it. So obviously
it's going to go to court and Democrats are going
to fund it them. We're gonna see some national Democrats
backing these people. We're already seeing some of them, but
we're going to most likely go to see like money
from George Sorows and major donors defending them to break korum.

(04:01):
So this is going to be this is going to
be a long battle for them if they get removed.
But you know, Governor is not planning playing around anymore,
and neither is the House members, which which is interesting
because that's not something we saw last time when they
did this. They talked about it, but they didn't really
do anything. And I think Governor's upset that nothing happened,

(04:24):
that they did not get punished for the last time.
So I think he's taking the lead on this.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
I think you're right. Good to talk to you, sir.
Thank you for your time early this morning. That's Texas
Republican Party Chairman Abraham George. It's five point fifty seven